Wescot chasing son for false Sky debt

usignuolo

My son is being pursued for a debt he does not owe by a debt collection agency some of you may have heard of, Wescot.

Basically until his firm sent him overseas last summer, he rented a Sky TV package while living in a shared flat. As he is a bit of a geek he added HD when it became available, for another £10 month. When he moved overseas he wrote to Sky and cancelled the whole lot. Sky made a mistake, which they have admitted, and cancelled his main sub but neglected to cancel the HD element (possibly because it had been added later). We found this out when their final demands started to arrive at our house which left as a forwarding address for bills.

He got in touch with Sky who apologised and said they had cancelled the debt as it was their mistake. That was in November last year. Then a month ago (March) an aggressive letter arrived from Wescot debt collectors demanding payment of this "outstanding" HD amount on behalf of Sky. Once again my son phoned Sky from abroad and they apologised and said it was an error and they would tell Wescot this.

Today an even more aggressive letter arrived from Wescot saying he now owed £34 plus threat of £80 legal fees if he did not pay within 10 days. Again he phoned Sky who said they had notified Wescot he did not owe his money. He then phoned Wescot who denied receiving any notification from Sky about it. He phoned Sky back and they insisted they had told Wescot he did not owe it but would tell them again.

Anyone got any suggestions on how to kill this once and for all?. My son does not want a CCJ or black mark on his credit rating and we do not want it entered against our address.

Usignuolo

Clive_Woody

Get SKY to confirm this to you in writing. Forward a copy of this letter to the debt collectors and politely tell them to get lost.

tinymcfc

I work for a similar debt recovery agency. First of all the letter threatening leagl fees etc is a joke, they arent about to take your son to court for that kind of money - if he didnt pay they'd just send it back to SKY as 'wont pay'. That'd be the end of that.

To get that matter resolved, do as the above poster said, get SKY to write you a bespoke letter confirming your son doesnt owe the debt, then forward this onto wescot. In the meantime call Wescot and advise them that you will sue them for harrassment if they dont stop calling/writing to you and tell them you want an immediate 'delay' on the account until the matter is sorted. This 'delay' stops any legal proceedings letters being generated (standard letter sent to everyone that doesnt pay - it means nothing.).

Tiny

sunnyflower

Westcot are absolutely shambolic! :mad: :mad:

Some years ago my husband was accused of owing money to Currys (I think), saying that he'd lived at an address in Brighton (we lived in Bedfordshire), bought a washing machine on HP, and then left the address without paying the balance. All absolute rubbish!
They demanded the arrears, plus a recovery or they were going to send the boys round!
I fired off a letter, threatening them with a solicitor if they pursued this nonsense. They didn't even have the decency to write back and apologise.

My poor husband had several sleepless nights.
They are bully boys, get legal advice, Citizens Advice, or maybe your home / car insurance offers free legal advice ( mine does).